Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Correctly Saving Delimited Files.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 1, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Raymond indicated that he was having some problems properly exporting delimited files from within Excel. Raymond was requesting that Excel create a file using the tab character as a delimiter. It seems that Excel would not reliably add a tab character at the end of a row when the last field in the row was empty.
Actually, this is how Excel is designed to operate. When exporting information to a delimited file, each row in the data table is handled independently. If one particular row has fewer fields than other rows, Excel doesn't "pad out" the exported row with "blank" fields. This can, of course, lead to problems with some other programs that use the Excel-created file and rely on a static number of fields in each input row.
A workaround for this potential problem is to simply make sure that Excel always has something in every cell of the final column of your data table. This is actually easier than it sounds—all you need to do is make sure the right-most column contains some unique text string, perhaps something like [{|}]. (It is unlikely that such a string would be used elsewhere in your data.) When you export to a delimited file, Excel will always export the same number of fields per row, right up to the unique text string. Then, when you import the delimited file into your other program, you can instruct it to ignore the last field of each row that it imports.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10564) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Correctly Saving Delimited Files.
Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!
Workbooks are loaded from disk files, but workbooks aren't the only type of files that Excel can load. This tip provides ...
Discover MoreIf you open a workbook and notice that Excel displays two windows for it, this has to do with how the workbook was saved. ...
Discover MoreWhen you save a workbook to disk, you may want to automatically save a duplicate workbook in a separate location. This ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here:
Comments